3rd August 2014 a video is uploaded to YouTube that lasts just over 1 minute and 28 seconds .. it features sock puppets “performing” in a room of chaos. The music they are performing is described as “nostalgia pollution” by the band themselves.

In the following two years the band will have been compared to everyone from “Blur if they were raised in Seattle “ to “ the excitement you felt when you first heard Buzzcocks or Manics “.

Since 2014 the band have released 7 singles, each one more critically acclaimed than the last. Each one dealing with a different subject matter… and here is where Asylums stand out.

Yes they are fun, yes the videos are all directed with tongue firmly in cheek, yes the lead singer would win any Sideshow Bob lookalike contest, yes the guitarist is not only the most unlikeliest sex symbol but also one of the most eye catching performers ever and yes the rhythm section are the mother of all ballistic forces but in amongst all that, Asylums have a social conscience as big as any food bank.

Subject matters such as:

Second Class Sex - Gender Equality

I've Seen Your Face In A Music Magazine - Media's representation of artists

The singles led to an album that received BBC 6 Music’s coveted album of the day; such was the love for the band at radio.

But it’s live that the band has won the hearts, ears and sometimes shoulders of the general public. Hearts because who could not love such a self depreciating bunch of vagabonds, ears because anyone who catches them live does not forget it and shoulders because rarely a show is played without Luke, the lead singer, walking, crawling, flailing on the hands and shoulders of the crowd.

The band have played Glastonbury at the invitation of BBC introducing, supported Killing Joke, Ash, The Enemy, Reverend & The Makers, and The Vaselines to name but a few.

They have played to 100’s of 1000’s of people across the country and Europe at festivals from Reading and Leeds to The Great Escape.

And all this has been achieved on their own.. They are the ultimate DIY band. Everything is created from a tight group of like-minded individuals under the Cool Thing Records label.

And thanks to Asylums the label is also growing.

And so 2017..

First 5 months taken off to write and record the follow up record. Except follow up is possibly the wrong way of describing it … it’s undeniably Asylums but the pop is being squeezed tighter into the mix..

For the rest of 2017 the band will be playing shows and festivals ( Y Not , Tramlines, Camden Rocks x 2 , IOW, Village Green etc. And then releasing two brand new EP’s on the unsuspecting public.

In a year of chaos and turmoil , it may be a bunch of ne’er-do-wells from Southend who remain Strong and Stable